DAY CARE OWNERS ACCUSED
OF EXCESSIVE BABY SWADDLING

LIVERMORE 
The owners of a San Francisco Bay Area child care center have been arrested for swaddling babies so tightly it allegedly impaired their ability to move and breathe.

Sisters Nazila Sharaf, 35, and Lida Sharaf, 33, each were charged Wednesday with three felony counts and four misdemeanor counts of child abuse and neglect, The Oakland Tribune reported.

The charges stem from the alleged mistreatment of seven babies between the ages of 7 and 11 months who were enrolled at Universal Preschool in Livermore. Mobile infants that old are not supposed to be swaddled, a technique used to calm newborns accustomed to the confines of the womb, and the coverings are never supposed to be so restrictive a child cannot get free.

Officer Steve Goard told the Tribune that the women wrapped the infants’ torsos and limbs in blankets, secured the coverings with knots, and then left the children that way in an attempt to force them to go to sleep. The practice was particularly dangerous for the three babies with respiratory problems, who would have been unable to use their arms or legs to loosen the restrictions if they were in distress, Goard said.

Associated Press

“They basically restrained these children, almost like a boa constrictor,” he said. “All of these children could have died in the process of binding these extremities.”

The sisters’ arrests came a little more than five weeks after the California Department of Social Services closed Universal Preschool, citing multiple licensing violations. Those included improper swaddling, having more children on site than the center’s license allowed, and using a caregiver who had not been subjected to a background check.

The Department of Social Services started investigating the center last month after a 19-year-old woman who worked there for two weeks and quit reported her concern, Goard said.

Lida Sharaf operated another child care center that was shut down by the state in 2010 over similar swaddling problems, he said.